Abstract

The market offers more and more products that are claimed to have medicallypositive effects (like increased blood perfusion etc.) due to their magneticproperties. The objective of this study was to investigate if blankets containingpermanent (static) magnets have a greater impact on cutaneous blood circulationthan ordinary blankets without magnets. Eight standard bred horses were used in across-over study. The cutaneous temperature was presumed to reflect blood flowin the skin and therefore thermography and local thermistors were used to indicatechanges in circulation. Baseline values were registered before the blanket wasapplied. Additional measurements were made during and after removal of theblankets. The results were compared between the groups in order to see if therewere statistically significant differences. The study did not reveal any significantdifferences in local and general skin temperatures between the two study groups.Thus, this study of a small number of horses could not support the idea that staticmagnets have any effect on cutaneous blood flow.